I wond’r how much it’ll cost to fix our car? Costly adventures exploring the Daintree Rainforest and Great Barrier Reef in Cairns

Arriving in Cairns was a significant milestone on our Australian Odyssey – marking the completion of our drive North up the East coast. Although Queensland’s fifth biggest city isn’t anything to write home about, that really isn’t an issue considering Cairns is famously the gateway to both the tropical Daintree Rainforest and the worlds largest single structure made from living organisms: the Great Barrier Reef!

We’d fortunately lined up a housesit on the outer edges of town that perfectly matched our dates, featuring an outdoor swimming pool, cinema room, pool table and an expansive balcony looking out to the surreal rainforested hillside overlooking us. While there we had the fortune of caring for a rather boisterous American Staffy named Bosun, who turned out to be the biggest (and strongest) dog we’d looked after thus far. Although this made me feel like a bad ass gangster, it did mean we weren’t comfortable walking him further afield.

Therefore we opted to go dogless for our first days expedition to Cairns’ impressive Botanical Gardens; where we walked through never ending walkways surrounded by tropical fauna and explored galleries set up in old WWII naval oil tanks, to the exotic soundtrack made by the many colourful birds above us.

Underwater adventures in the Great Barrier Reef

Despite seeing a myriad of stunningly colourful fish off Whitsunday Island the week before, we were keen to spend some more time in warmer waters while we had the chance. Having decided against another expensive tourist package deal, we initially struggled to find availability on a boat that would take us to one of the nearby islands before the weather turned. Eventually however, our relentless efforts proved fruitful and we successfully booked ourselves tickets to Fitzroy Island, on board the aptly named 1,000 bhp ‘Thunderbolt’ high speed reef boat!

Even with the additional time for the Captain to complete a series of doughnuts to show off the power of his impressive vessel, we made it to Fitzroy Island in little over half an hour. After disappointingly finding out the Turtle Sanctuary tour was fully booked, we set off along the rocky pathway to Nudey Beach, which has recently been voted the best in Australia. Wanting to make the most of our time, we briskly and carefully changed into our swimmers (it’s strictly NOT a nudist beach despite its name suggesting otherwise) but stopped short of putting our snorkel gear on after realising the conditions; to say the water was choppy would be an understatement :-/

So, with a glimmer of hope that the other side of the Island would be sheltered from the prevailing winds, we headed back in the direction of Welcome Bay from where we’d arrived. Just as we hoped, the water was far calmer, so we continued up the beach to the famous reefs that surround ‘Bird Rock’ – a prominent boulder so named because of the large quantities of bird poo that cover it like icing on a cake (it even glows in the moonlight apparently)!

Almost immediately on entering the water — the reef is handily just metres from the beach — we were greeted by a welcome party of assorted fish that grew larger as we snorkelled further out, consisting of Parrotfish, Wrasse, Surgeon Fish and Butterfly Fish. Although we were truly entranced by the cloud of colours that surrounded us (despite the murky waters due to the choppy waters), we secretly wished for the opportunity to meet a Green Turtle in its natural environment. You can therefore guess our astonishment and joy, as a turtle calmly paddled past! We couldn’t resist following at a distance, mesmerised at the beauty of how gracefully such a large animal moves from rock to rock, grazing on the sea grass and algae. Although we planned to do a walk or two around the island, we ended up far happier spending our entire time underwater.

Rush hour in the Daintree Rainforest

Understandably, given the impressive size of the Daintree Rainforest (almost 500 sq miles) there’s a plethora of walks and trails to choose from, and as per usual we were struggling to decide on which to attempt while keeping in mind the four hour return journey from Cairns. Eventually we settled upon Mossman Gorge, as it had good reviews, no entrance fees and meant we weren’t going to need to take the ferry further North.

After some beautiful driving along relentless hairpins that hugged the cliff edge with the beaches below, we arrived at the Centre. There we fought with our conscience, while considering whether to ignore signage requesting visitors pay $10 per person for shuttle buses to the beginning of the trails. After completing the pleasant 20 min walk, we were glad with our decision; especially considering at no point did we go through any Aboriginal settlements, which was a key argument for taking the bus.

Unfortunately, once beginning the trails, we realised we’d made a bad decision. Rather than being greeted with spacious, peaceful walkways surrounded by nature, we instead found ourselves feeling like we were on the London Underground: shuffling along narrow paths, constantly queued up behind large groups of tourists almost the entire time :-/ Despite this, we made the most of our time there and completed the full Rainforest Circuit Track that did have some picturesque streams and pools, but were ultimately glad to leave the hordes behind.

Nursing a poorly car back to full health

Rather than making a speedy getaway, we did the complete opposite: While driving back to Cairns, our trusty steed suddenly lost all power, requiring us to swiftly pull over before coming to a complete halt in the middle of the road. Fortunately we made it, just, to a garage in the nearby town of Mossman. After taking a look, the mechanic reckoned the transmission had gone, and would need to tow us back to Cairns where they’d have the parts and could fix automatics. His initial estimate was $2,500 🙁

The next day we played a spot of pool, trying to take our mind of things, as we waited for a phone call from the garage to confirm the damage and when they’d be able to get it done; we were on a tight schedule needing to get back to Sydney at the beginning of August for a house sitting assignment, and still had over 8,000 km to go. Hating the suspense, I gave the garage a call and we immediately breathed a sigh of relief – the work was almost complete and was going to cost just $650; phew!

Once we’d replenished our food supplies — consisting mostly of tinned cans — we set off once again towards the dusty world of the Outback, on our way to Darwin…